Fief battle. Great gear for all classes, and it should be decent. Going to give out money to every merc who shows, plus a 10k prize for the best K/D. Another prize for the best 'Bootlegging' pseudonym.

Moonshine stood atop the highest walls of his castle, his gaze locked to the east. "Well tell me lads, what do you see?"

One guard removed the glass from his face, and looked at his Lord. "Three armies. Decent sized, plowing through peasants, and burning all in their path."

Moonshine frowned. Once upon a time, Astralis was pushed out of their homes, and had to turn to a nomad's life. "I don't like this. I don't like this one bit. Isn't right. None of it. I guess I only have one recourse. Get word to Lumetta's people. If his followers..."

"Her... I believe Lumetta is a woman." The guard interrupted.

"Fine, fine... if HER people..."

"No, I'm pretty sure it's a guy." Said a second guard...

Moonshine glared at them both. "Stop interrupting. Get word to Lumetta's people... if its followers..." He paused, expecting an interruption, but then continued. "If they need a place to find shelter, they may come here to Senuzgda Castle. If they need goods, they may freely trade. Send word to each of our fiefs, and let our merchants know of it. At least one of you needs to stay and watch the East. If something changes, let me know. If not... I'll be in the map room. I need to think some more."

Truth is, I don't know if there is still time to cancel... but... it should be.

1) I don't know how experienced the 'Zerks are, but clearly, either they need to knock the rust off, or they are somewhat new to battle mechanics. Kelredan castle was disastrous. An attacker should never be gear bugged. Chalk that up as a learning experience. Still, they lost their army, and all the gear... that will take time to rebuild.

2) Chide is their only fief. Day after day, i read complaints that there aren't enough battles, or people for that matter... so what are you doing? Setting them back even further. Now, either they will become nomadic, and may rebuild... or they just might quit. Do we really need less people generating troops/engaging in battles? And now the time from their original loss has just been doubled, if not tripled before they can mount anything.

3) HCE likes to have a set of 'gentleman's rules' in place. No raiding, no bad battle times, etc... and yet, the moment someone comes along and pokes them in the eye, they immediately move to steam roll. Sorry, but you guys get the hypocrite award for the year. And yes, I say year, because the map should have been reset in 2014, and all the transgressions from 2014 are dated at this point.

Yet again, an Astralis army marches out to meet one of yours. This time, it's Arms. Devestator was marching to fight you in a field battle Legs. Then you run and hide behind Dhirim's walls.

I'll say this. Squids, you don't get the strat crown. You have no spine. You are afraid to fight. You would rather paint the map green by taking out Crime ridden fiefs with a shitload of SnD, and no army, than to fight a real battle.

Crown goes to Kesh's crew, Bryggan's Crew, Acre, or hell, to Astralis. I'd even rank the Yoshi's higher than you. We're looking for a fight, and you guys are no where to be seen. Pathetic.

Devestator will march halfway to Dhirim. If you want the community to think differently, meet him there. We want a prime time battle so people can enjoy the fruits of our labors... it's impossible to coordinate things with you because all you ever do is run with your tentacles tucked between your legs.

The stage is set. This may be the last battle of strat (since no one really knows when it will end)

In the defending corner, we have the Squids. Slimy, nasty critters with a horrible history of betrayal. They have left nothing but destruction, misery, and broken souls in their wake. They have stolen more items from heroes than anyone else. Hopefully, some may still be in Caraf Castle.

In the attacking corner, we have Astralis. Led by the Mighty Moonshine. The people's champion. He's cut off countless armies, and saved plenty of peasants from the chains of slavery and Squid-dom. Recently he has set upon a quest to liberate Squidian fiefs. His army has now marched upon the castle with hope, good will, and salvation for the citizens of every fief he enters.

Just curious, but is there any interest in another friendly skirmish? I would need a troop donation. ;-)

Anyway, what I personally would like to see is a training battle. Each side sets up a forward spawn/box near the center of the field for the melee fighters. Each side also sets up a box in between two different siege sections. One part gets a catapult, the other gets a siege tower. The engineers are left alone, and attempt to take down the other side's tower with the catapult. Once the towers are down, they launch fire into the center of the field. It goes without saying that the engineers would be left to their own devices, and wouldn't get attacked...

I know I personally think we can use more practice with the catapults. Once the walls come down, sieges are a bit more interesting. Right now, it's a long maul fest at a ladder, and that's kind of boring.

Friendly skirmish scheduled for 9:17 PM EST between Bale and myself. This is a non alliance fight. Strat is over, and as such, we shouldn't let the gear, nor the troops be wasted. So Bale asked for someone to step up, and the battle is now set. There are few things that I request:

1) Strat 5 is over, so let's not let this be a simple alliance vs alliance match. Let's mix it up. 2) Roster size matters. This won't be a lopsided match. If I have 50, and he's got 10, I'll be asking some to switch sides. We want to keep the roster size balanced as well as we can. He'll do the same. 3) The gear is pretty balanced. 4) The troop count is pretty balanced.

So let's make this a fun fight. It's a field battle. There are horses for both sides.

Would you prefer to have battles in the early morning, before daylight... or during the workday? I realize the goal is always to have them at prime time, but when attacking caravans, that's not possible. We take what we can get. I'd like to adjust my night time settings to help my community get battles at the most 'decent' of off time battles. At first, I thought middle of the night battles would be best, but after tonight's turn out... I'm not so certain. So I figured I'd pose that question to the community.

I'm definitely looking for merc support on this one. It's a trade caravan. Field battles have been lacking on NA1 and sadly, it's not like I could have told him, 'Yo, hold up right in that exact spot so we can duke it out at an ideal time for all.' Reinforcements would have been there immediately, and he probably would have quick marched.

I believe the gear is good. Weapons for all classes (though . This battle is critical for many involved.

I actually think it may be bugged. I'm one of the few users of this weapon, and I'm finding that when I get hit in a melee fight, my weapon will often get sheathed. It was happening over and over, to the point where I thought it was my mouse/keyboard. I mapped and remapped the weapon equip buttons. I switched to a longsword, and the problem went away. Switched back to the scythe, and it returned. Today I went into duels and sure enough, it would only happen when using that weapon. Can you look into it?